


Sweaty Clumsy Adolescent Gets Unusually Introspective

by ckret2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Internal Monologue, Introspection, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29765565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: Every caste has its own unique capabilities.You have strength. Sheer, raw physical strength.That's not the talent of any caste. So what are you?(Equius muses on the privileges of power but never quite realizes that's what it is.)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	Sweaty Clumsy Adolescent Gets Unusually Introspective

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of two fics I wrote for [Lunar Tide](https://highbloodzine.tumblr.com/post/617142779304394753/get-the-full-zine-here), a zine dedicated to troll highbloods, which is free to download! Also check out the companion zine [Solar Flare](https://lowbloodzine.tumblr.com/post/617142851690725376/get-the-full-zine-here) for lowbloods. My other fic is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29740926) and it's about the Condesce.

Every caste has its own unique capabilities.

Telekinesis. Communion with Gl'bgolyb. Mind control. Command over animals. Immunity to sunlight.

An affinity for delicate weaponry and machinery—the thin wires of a robot, the thin wires of a crossbow.

You have strength. Sheer, raw physical strength.

That's not the talent of any caste. So what are you?

###

You have heard of mutants. You don't know a lot—just that sometimes they happen. If you're a mutant, it means that something's gone wrong in your blood. It means you might have strange powers, or no powers. It means you have no proper place in the glorious Alternian Empire.

You try harder to learn how to wield a bow and arrow. You snap the bow again.

You have heard that mutants are identifiable by the hue of their blood—if you're a mutant, your color is wrong, unnatural, something no troll should ever have.

Your blood looks fine. Your sweat, soaking everything you own, is the correct hue. So what are you?

Is it possible to be a mutant mutant?

###

You were born with this power. It's so natural to you that sometimes you don't understand how other people don't share it.

Sometimes you find yourself thinking that your friends are being lazy when they gripe about something like unsuccessfully struggling to move their furniture, even though when you stop and think about it you know that can't be the case. For you, trying not to accidentally move furniture around is a bigger challenge than moving it on purpose—so, if your friends did have your strength, how could forcibly restraining themselves from doing something effortless be laziness when it takes more work to not do it than it does to do it? So they must be telling the truth when they say they can't do it.

And yet you find yourself thinking like that sometimes anyway. You find it difficult to grasp the kind of powerlessness that you're incapable of experiencing. By your very birthright you can't imagine navigating a world without power that comes to you so effortlessly you couldn't stop having it if you tried.

Maybe there's a metaphor in this somewhere.

###

Everything comes easily for you.

Most people have to work for their strength. They struggle to achieve physical power, having to work out for hours and hours to reach the kind of strength that you've achieved effortlessly. You've never had to exercise.

Sometimes you stand in front of the mirror and flex your soft thin arms, wishing desperately that the muscles would pull taut, that you could have the kind of rippling bulging biceps that would demonstrate your strength. You don't. Of course you don't. You're no body builder—you've never had to work for your strength. It simply is.

You don't know how you'd start to build up your physique even if you wanted to. What good would push-ups do you when you can already effortlessly lift objects that weigh many times more than you do? What good would pull-ups do when your very grip would crush and bend the metal bar as you pulled yourself up? You can pick up any barbell and toss it like a boomerang if you want. How could you possibly build your strength—lifting mountains? The process of detaching a mountain from the ground so it can be lifted sounds like the real challenge here.

And besides, you don't really want to be more strong. You're already so strong you don't know what to do with your strength. Everything shatters in your hands. Everything's crushed under your fingertips. Your room looks like an angry wild animal was locked inside and tried to escape; everything you own is torn, broken, destroyed, scattered in parts across the floor. The only way you get to keep anything is by not touching it.

You wish you had the capacity to be gentle. You don't.

Some days you can hardly eat because you can't hold the metal utensils to eat without slowly bending them, and when you've snapped a third fork in half you'd rather give up in frustration than eat with your hands like an uncultured brute. Anyway, if you tried, you'd just crush the food in your hands and make a mess of everything.

Nothing comes easily for you.

**Author's Note:**

> Posts for this fic available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/644413869885980672/sweaty-clumsy-adolescent-gets-unusually) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/ckret2/status/1366152893213118478?s=20). If you enjoyed the fic, comments/reblogs there are highly appreciated (as are comments here)!


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